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Immigration and Techniques of Governance in Mexico and the United States: Recalibrating National Narratives through Comparative Immigration Histories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2011

Extract

Immigration histories typically endeavor to describe and hold a nation–state accountable not only for the laws and policies by which it admits some immigrants, but also for those by which it refuses, excludes, or deports other immigrants. This article explores immigration to Mexico and to the United States with attention to its implications for the status of persons, and also for the conventional historical narratives in each country. The article focuses on three techniques of governance that each country has engaged in regard to immigration. These techniques include: 1) the assignment of nationality as a singular attribute of personhood; 2) the use of demonstrable and documentable characteristics as criteria of admission; and 3) centralized registration procedures to monitor and control the immigrant population. The techniques are analyzed together because of their concurrent emergence in each country during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The techniques are also complementary. They form a set that, although not unique to the United States and Mexico, nevertheless illustrates parallels and an interplay between the two countries, and, more broadly, illustrates how immigration presents a common predicament across different times, places, and forms of government.

Type
Reflections on Further Research in Comparative Legal History
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2011

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References

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In recent decades, many Salvadorans have traveled to Mexican border towns to cross into the United States, whereas many Guatemalan immigrants have sought refuge in Chiapas. In 1990, an estimated 356,400 refugees were living in Mexico. The National Geographic film “Wetback: The Undocumented Documentary” (2004), in following the arduous journey of Central Americans traveling through Mexico, illustrates the challenges of seeking refuge in Mexico and the arbitrary attempts by Mexican officials to enforce immigration laws. In June 2006, Mexican Deputy Foreign Minister Gerónimo Gutiérrez acknowledged that Mexican immigration laws were “tougher than those being contemplated by the United States.” This comment reflects the dilemma facing Mexican authorities about how to handle the estimated 1.5 million undocumented people crossing the southern Mexican border in the state of Chiapas. These undocumented immigrants include Guatemalans who are perceived as willing to do the jobs that “Mexicans departing for the north no longer want.” Ginger Thompson, “Mexico Worries About Its Own Southern Border,” The New York Times, June 18, 2006, 1.

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With specific attention to the United States, historian Mae Ngai offers a critique of democratic sovereignty. Through her analysis of continued migrations and tacit acceptance of undocumented immigrants in the United States, she arrives at the characterization of some immigrants as “impossible subjects.” Mae Ngai writes: “Americans want to believe that immigration to the United States proves the universality of the nation's liberal democratic principles; we resist examining the role that American world power has played in the global structures of migration. We like to believe that our immigration policy is generous, but we also resent the demands made upon us by others and we think we owe outsiders nothing.” Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 11.

17. For an overview, see King, Making Americans: Immigration, Race, and the Origins of the Diverse Democracy. Works by Mae Ngai, Erika Lee, Lucy Salyer, Alan Kraut, Neil Foley, George Sánchez and others illustrate the contemporary body of scholarship about ethnic and racial immigrant groups in the United States.

18. The Archivo Migratorio del Instituto National de Migración, a central government archive of Mexican migration record, began a comprehensive digitalization and records management project in 2003; records span to recent decades and are being processed in accordance with privacy and security interests. Archivo Migratorio Central del INM: Futuro con pasado y presente (Mexico City: Secretaría de Gobernación, Instituto Nacional de Migración, 2007), http://www.agn.gob.mx/menuprincipal/archivista/reuniones/2007/regional/gobiernofederal/pdf/007.pdf (accessed November 19, 2010).

By contrast to the immigration resources of the Archivo Migratorio in Mexico, emigration resources are more widely available. Scholars such as Jaime Aguila have studied Mexican emigration and emigration policy in detail and, as he points out with regard to the potential for historiography, “the Mexican government viewed emigration within international context,” and “consular personnel envisioned that [societies of emigrants abroad] would become a formal conduit between emigrants and the consulates, as well as a tool to promote Mexican nationalism among expatriate communities.” Jaime Aguila, Diplomatic History, 31 (2) (April 2007), 211, and 218, n44.

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21. Although smaller both in number and in proportion to the national population than their counterparts in the United States, immigrants to Mexico and their children have tended to wield disproportionately significant power in Mexican politics and the Mexican economy. See Alfaro-Velcamp, TheresaImmigrant Positioning in Twentieth-Century Mexico: Middle Easterners, Foreign Citizens, and Multiculturalism,” Hispanic American Historical Review 86 (2006): 6191CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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28. Note, however, that as various current, country-specific processing times and numbers of available immigrant visas published monthly in the Visa Bulletin attest, the system retains policies and procedures of categorical restriction and exclusion by nationality. http://travel.state.gov/visa/bulletin/bulletin_5145.html (accessed October 28, 2010).

29. Weil, “Races at the Gates.”

30. Katz, The Secret War in Mexico, x.

31. Jacobson, Matthew Frye, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge:Harvard University Press, 1998)Google Scholar. See also King, Making Americans. See note 62, regarding the Mexican quota law of 1937.

32. Immigration Act of 1891, 26 Stat. 1084, 85 (1909); Diario Oficial de la Federación, December 22, 1908, No. 44, Vol. XCIX, 645–50 (with effective date March 1, 1909), reprinted as Ley de Inmigración de 1909. Compilación histórica (2002), 111 [Hereafter Diario Oficial].

33. See generally, Vázquez, Josefina Zoraida and Meyer, Lorenzo, The United States and Mexico (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

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36. “Mexican Citizenship of children born in that country of alien parents,” Department of Labor, Office of the Solicitor, Washington. August 9, 1918, RG 85, Immigration and Naturalization Service [hereafter INS], Series A, Part 2.

37. Jerry Garcia, “Japanese Immigration and Community Development in México,” (Ph.D. diss., Washington State University, 1999), Appendix IV, 225.

38. María Elena Ota Mishima, “Características sociales y económicas de los migrantes japoneses en México,” in Destino México, 85, Cuadro 1.

39. Chinese Exclusion Act of May 6, 1882, 22 Stat. 58 (1882). Hu-DeHart, Evelyn. “Immigrants to a Developing Society: The Chinese in Northern Mexico, 1875–1932,” Journal of Arizona History 21 (1980): 277Google Scholar.

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44. In 1885, Ignacio Luis Vallarta began drafting the law under the authority of Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ignacio Mariscal. Vance, John T. and Clagett, Helen L., A Guide to the Law and Legal Literature of Mexico (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1945), 191Google Scholar.

45. Ley de extranjería y naturalización (20 de mayo de 1886). Compilación histórica de la legislación migratoria en México 1821–2002 (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Migración, 2002), 94 (Art. 1, Section VIII).

46. Ley de extranjería y naturalización (20 de mayo de 1886), 101. This statute parallels the alien land laws popular in United States jurisdictions, including California. Alien Land Act, 1913, Calif. Stats. 1913, p. 206, superceded by CA. Const. Art. 1, § 20 (atended 1974).

47. Ley de extranjería y naturalización (20 de mayo de 1886), Article 3, Section IV, 95.

48. Ley de extranjería y naturalización (20 de mayo de 1886), Chapter 4, Sections 39–40, 100. Also see Augustine-Adams, Kif, “Making Mexico: Legal Nationality, Chinese Race, and the 1930s population Census,” Law and History Review (2009): 113–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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50. Ibid., 23.

51. United States Constitution, Amendment XIV.

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53. Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, Pub. L. No. 59–338, 34 Stat. 596 (1906).

54. For an institutional history, see Ngai, Mae M., “The Strange Career of the Illegal Alien: Immigration Restriction and Deportation Policy in the United States, 1921–1965,” Law and History Review 21 (2003): 70, n.1CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55. See generally, for example, M1613 Naturalization Records, Superior Court, San Diego, CA, Roll 1–14, located at National Archives and Records Administration, Laguna Niguel, CA (hereafter NARA, LN).

56. List of Foreign Sovereignties and Their Rulers, Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, Department of Commerce and Labor (August 16, 1909), M1613 Naturalization Records, Superior Court, San Diego, CA, Roll 3, NARA, LN. The list names twenty-two foreign sovereignties whose subjects were then ruled by an emperor, sultan, king, queen, or prince, in addition to naming two dozen foreign republics. These sovereigns included, among others, Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia; Nicolas II, Emperor of all the Russias; Muhammed V, Sultan of Turkey; Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands; and Albert, Prince of Monaco.

57. Temporary Quota Act of May 19, 1921, 42 Stat. 5 (1921).

58. Act of May 26, 1924, 43 Stat. 153 (1924).

59. See generally, Keely, Charles, “Immigration in the Interwar Period,” in Immigration and U.S. Foreign Policy, eds. Tucker, Robert, Keely, Charles, and Wrigley, Linda (Boulder: Westview Press, 1990), 4450Google Scholar; and Ngai, Impossible Subjects.

60. Immigration and Nationality Act, Pub. L. No. 82–414, 66 Stat. 163 (1952), codified as amended at 8 U.S.C. 101 et. seq. (2009). For a brief summary of federal immigration law, the promulgation of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, and subsequent amendments and reforms to the Act, see Fragomen and Bell, Immigration Fundamentals.

61. Yankelevich, Pablo and Alazraki, Chenillo, “La arquitectura de la política de inmigración en México,” in Nación y extranjería: la exclusion racial en las políticas migratorias de Argentina, Brasil, Cuba y México, ed. Yankelevich, Pablo (Mexico City:Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2009), 221Google Scholar; and Archivo Migratorio del Instituto National de Migración, exp. 4-350-1935-228B 1 de 3.

62. James B. Stewart, American Consul General, to Secretary of State, November 23, 1937, Document No. 55,609/551, Record Group 85, INS, Series A: Part 2, Reel 17, 2,1.

63. Ibid., 2–3.

64. Diario Oficial, No. 17, Vol. CV, November 19, 1937, Articulo 1.

65. Loyo, Gilberto, La politica demográfica de Mexico (Mexico City: Talleres tipograficos de S. Turanzas del Valle, 1935), 374–75Google Scholar. Diario Oficial, No. 13, Vol. XLIII, July 15, 1927.

66. Hart, John Mason, Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 504CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67. To illustrate how the concept of good moral character acquired a technical meaning, consider the case of Francisco H. Rodríguez. In June 1919, Rodríguez, a Mexican-born, 27-year old man, was “excluded for having brought a woman to the United States for an immoral purpose, as having admitted the commission of a crime involving moral turpitude and as being a person likely to become a public charge.” Supervising Inspector to Commissioner-General of Immigration, Washington, D.C., United States Department of Labor, Immigration Service, June 10, 1919, Document No. 54,577–748, RG 85, INS, National Archives, Washington, D.C. [hereafter NARA, DC]. During a Board of Special Inquiry, when asked why he did not marry Cipriana Bejarano, Rodríguez responded “because the laws of Mexico are not so strict as in the United States. A man can live with a woman in Mexico and he will not be punished for it.” Board of Special Inquiry, El Paso, Texas in the Matter of Rodríguez, Francisco, June 5, 1919, Document No. 54,577–748, RG 85, INS, NARA, DC, 2. For more on the significance of designation as a public charge, see Patricia Russell Evans, “‘Likely to Become a Public Charge,’ Immigration in the Backwaters of Administrative Law, 1882–1933,” (Ph.D. diss., The George Washington University, 1987).

68. Zolberg, Aristide R., A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America (New York:Russell Sage Foundation, Harvard University Press, 2006), 110–13, 264–65Google Scholar.

69. Kraut, Alan M., Silent Travelers: Germs, Genes, and the “Immigrant Menace” (New York:Basic Books, 1994), 51, 55Google Scholar. Immigration Act of March 3, 1891, 26. Stat. 1084 (1891). See also Neuman, Gerald L., Strangers to the Constitution: Immigrants, Borders, and Fundamental Law (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1996), 31, n126Google Scholar.

70. See Alfaro-Velcamp, Theresa, So Far From Allah, So Close to Mexico: Middle Eastern Immigrants in Modern Mexico (Austin:University of Texas Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

71. Memorandum as to Efforts Made to Perfect an Agreement with the Railways of Mexico Concerning of Aliens, February 3, 1903, Document No. 51,463, RG 85, INS, NARA, DC.

72. A history of the Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, translated officially as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is available on its website at: http://www.sre.gob.mx/en/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4&Itemid=98 (accessed November 19, 2010).

73. On June 7, 1906, Thompson wrote Mariscal again highlighting contagious diseases and how the Canadian government was helping in the cause to curb Syrian immigration. He wrote that “the Mexican government has always shown much alacrity in cooperating with the United States with respect to the suppression of common evils . . . I would be sincerely pleased to learn of their adoption, or of any other measures which Your Excellency's government may have the goodness to enact regarding the matter.” Exp. 14-28-79, June 30, 1906, Siglo XX, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, located in Mexico City (hereafter SRE).

74. Exp. 14–28–79, July 3, 1906, Siglo XX, SRE.

75. Thompson acknowledged the proposed measures to stem Syrian immigration in a letter to Mariscal dated August 27, 1906. Through Thompson, however, the United States continued asserting pressure on Mexico regarding its immigration policy. Thompson complained in the letter of how a Syrian with trachoma, John Shahadie Jacob, “secured unlawful entry into the United States from Mexico.” He indicated that another Syrian accompanied Mr. Shahadie, but the other Syrian's whereabouts were unknown. Thompson closed the letter stating, “Should these remedial measures meet with the views of Your Excellency's government, I would be sincerely glad to learn of their adoption.” Exp. 14-28-79, August 26, 1906, Siglo XX, SRE.

76. Memorandum as to Efforts Made to Perfect an Agreement with the Railways of Mexico Concerning of Aliens, February 3, 1903, Document No. 51,463, RG 85, INS, NARA, DC, 3.

77. Acting Commissioner, Ellis Island, New York Harbor, N.Y. to United States Department of Labor, Immigration Service, January 24, 1914. Document No. 53,700-388, RG 85, INS, NARA, DC.

78. Acting Commissioner, Ellis Island, New York Harbor, N.Y. to United States Department of Labor, Immigration Service, January 24, 1914. Document No. 53,700-388, RG 85, INS, NARA, DC.

79. Immigrant Inspector Marcus Braun, Mexico City, Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, Department of Commerce and Labor, May 7, 1907, Document No. 51,564, RG 85, INS, NARA, DC.

80. The Law of September 22, 1908 is referenced in George H. Winters, American Vice Consul United States Department of State, “Review of Mexican Department of Migration Report Entitled: ‘The Migration Service in Mexico’, and Discussing Mexican Migration To and From the United States,” Document No. 812.5511.87, M274, October 25, 1929, U.S. State Department Records, RG 84, National Archives, College Park, MD.

81. Ibid.

82. Navarro, Moisés González, Población y sociedad en México (1900–1970), Tomo II (Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1974), 37Google Scholar.

83. Ley de Inmigración de 1909. Compilación histórica (2002), 111.

84. Neuman, Strangers to the Constitution, ch. 1. See also Evans, “‘Likely to Become a Public Charge.’”

85. Fragomen and Bell, Immigration Fundamentals, § 2:8.1; 8 C.F.R. § 204.6(f).

86. Act of June 29, 1906, Pub. L. No. 59–338, § 8, 34 Stat. 599 (1906). See also, Daniels, Coming to America, 278.

87. Diario Oficial, No. 52, Vol. XCVII, August 29, 1927. See also Mónica Palma Mora, “‘Una inmigración bienvenida’. Los ejecutivos de empresas extranjeras en México durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX,” in Los inmigrantes en el mundo de los negocios siglos XIX y XX, coordinated by Rosa María Meyer and Delia Salazar (Mexico City: Conaculta, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2003), 237.

88. Navarro, Moisés González, Los extranjeros en México y los mexicanos en el extranjero, 1821–1970, Volumen III (Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 1994), 4142Google Scholar.

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91. Ibid., 8.

92. Ibid., 2.

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94. Ibid., 63, 199, 200, 212, 229

95. Ibid., 241–42 n23 (President's Secretary File: Confidential File, State Department, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York).

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98. For the list of illnesses, see Moisés González Navarro, Población y Sociedad, Tomo II, 42.

99. John Q. Wood, American Consul in Charge, “New immigration regulations affecting immigrants entering Mexico,” Document No. 812.55/63, M274, October 27, 1922, U.S. State Department Records, RG 84, NARA, College Park, MD.

100. Ibid.

101. Yankelevich and Alazraki, “La arquitectura de la política de inmigración en México,” 211–12.

102. Diario Oficial, No. 13, Vol. XLIII, July 15, 1927.

103. Sims, Harold Dana, The Expulsion of Mexico's Spaniards 1821–1836 (Pittsburgh:University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990), 1617Google Scholar.

104. María Elena Ota Mishima, Destino México, 12–13.

105. Ley de Migración de 1930, Compilación histórica, 174.

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111. Alien Registration Act of 1940, Pub. L. No. 76-670, 43 Stat. 670 (1940).

112. Letter from Earl G. Harrison, Director of Registration, INS, to Every Alien in the United States of 1940, “The National Registration of Aliens: Instructions for Registration and the Specimen Form, Form AR-1” on file with Mission Indian Agency Central Classified Files, 1920–53, NARA, LN.

113. Letter from Earl G. Harrison (1940).

114. United States Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service. Specimen Form–Alien Registration, Form AR-1 (1940).

115. Alien Registration Act of 1940, Pub. L No. 76–670, 43 Stat 670 (1940); Letter from Earl Harrison (1940).

116. Act to prohibit the coming of Chinese Persons into the United States, 27 Stat. 25 (1892); Act of March 2, 1929, 45 Stat. 1512 (1929). Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 82.

117. Alien Enemy Act of 1798, 1 Stat. 577 (July 6, 1798), codified at 50 U.S.C. §§ 21–24 (2006).

118. Cooperstein, Theodore M., “Keep Your Friends Close, But Your Enemies Closer: Internment of Enemy Aliens in the Present Conflict,” Dartmouth Law Journal 7 (2009): 295306Google Scholar.

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120. Farnam, Julie, US Immigration Laws Under the Threat of Terrorism (New York:Algora Publishing, 2005), 72Google Scholar. American–Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, “ADC Immigration Law Advisory on Registration with INS,” (November 7, 2002).

121. Edward Alden, “Arab ‘Registry’ Upheld: Policy About Immigration, Not Counter-Terrorism,” New America Media (October 7, 2008) http://www.alternet.org/immigration/101894/arab_%22registry%22_upheld%3B_policy_about_immigration,_not_counter-terrorism/ (accessed August 24, 2009).

122. Ibid.

123. Hegemony can be defined as “a dominant ideology that has been naturalized and, having contrived a tangible world in its image, does not appear to be ideological at all.” Comaroff, John and Comaroff, Jean, Ethnography and the Historical Imagination (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), 29Google Scholar.